Tag Archives: teacher supply

Myths and Realities

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There are a number of myths around in the world of teacher supply at the present time. Some are supported by evidence from surveys but called into question by other data.

There are fewer teaching posts around this year.

This is the common myth of 2017, supported by evidence from the teacher associations about how strapped for cash schools will be in 2017/18.  Well, it may be that schools will have less cash than in the past, but so far that hasn’t affected vacancy rates for teachers, at least in the secondary sector. We won’t know the full outcome of the current recruitment round until after the May 31st resignation date, but, so far vacancies are up on 2016 and in line with 2015. There could be several reasons for this: more teachers may be quitting state schools or the profession in general as wages stagnate and working conditions don’t improve; the start of the increase in school rolls has created more jobs; independent schools are still hiring strongly. TeachVac has the data to look into these different scenarios and to identify whether there is a national trend or a series of different outcomes that may make it possible to support all the different statements in different parts of England.

The Teacher Supply Model isn’t working

Actually, for the main subjects it does seem to work. However, it doesn’t work as well in some of the subjects taking less curriculum time and there also seems to be a recurring issue around English. What critics often fail to take into account is the difference between the prediction of the Model and the outcome of the recruitment round. If the allocated places using the Model aren’t all filled, then a shortage is to be expected in the labour market a year later. Of course, with a national model, plus an uneven distribution of allocated places across the country, there are bound to be areas with shortages and even surpluses of teachers in some subjects. The real issue is the extent to which the government wants to make their modelling work better by involving others in the discussions? It has seemed that there has been something of a retreat into secrecy over the past year. Although since I wrote these words there has been something of a thaw.

School-based training is a growing share of the market

Well, it all depends upon what you mean by school-based training. If you include the school-administered courses for the School Direct Fee programme, you could probably make a case. However, these programmes often aren’t very different in content and approach to many genuine partnerships programmes administered by universities. The School Based Salary programme doesn’t look very different in numerical terms to the former GTTR programme, when it was at its height.  So, the key difference is Teach First and it is no longer clear how much more growth there is in that programme.

Finally, it is not a myth that the government didn’t publish the 2017 overall allocations for teacher preparation courses when it normally did. It should now do so before it enters purdah ahead of the general election.

 

 

 

 

Talk to APPG for the Teaching Profession

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ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP FOR THE TEACHING PROFESSION

MARCH 2017 Meeting

Teacher Supply, the current position, an update by Professor John Howson, Chairman TeachVac

There are three issues that I want to touch on in these brief remarks:

Vacancy rates for September 2017

The supply of new entrants for 2017

Applications for teacher preparation courses starting in September 2017 and consequences for 2018 labour market.

In passing, I will say something about the labour market for head teachers in the primary sector so far in 2017.

Vacancy rates for September 2017

Over the first two months advertised vacancies for secondary school classroom teachers have exceeded the numbers identified during the same period as in 2016 and are closer to the levels seen in 2015.

The largest demand has once again been in London and the counties and unitary authorities surrounding the capital. Demand has been lowest in the north of England and parts of the Midlands.

With so much discussion about funding pressures, the reasons for the increased demand in some regions might include, the upturn in pupil numbers creating a demand for more teachers; increased losses to the profession from wastage of teachers early in their careers; a buoyant independent sector following the drop in the value of Sterling and a re-balancing of the curriculum in favour of EBacc subjects, notably Geography.

The supply of new entrants for 2017

This is largely dependent on the intake last September to teacher preparation courses. With some teachers on these courses likely to fill vacancies in the schools where they are currently working (Teach First and School Direct Salaried trainees) the overall number in training is not the ‘free pool’ of trainees available to the remaining schools seeking to make an appointment. This divergence between the overall trainee numbers and the ‘free pool’ can be significant and is one of the risks associated with a move to an overwhelmingly school-based teacher preparation regime.

At this stage of the 2017 recruitment round that covers September 2017 and January 2018 vacancies, TeachVac has already issued a red alert for business studies. A read alert means that on the current number of recorded vacancies we do not expect there to be enough trainees to fill all vacancies during the recruitment round. In business studies, a non-bursary subject largely ignored by the DfE, we expect the trainee pool to be exhausted before the summer.

The other subject where TeachVac data reveals the potential risk of a shortage is English. We expect to issue a red alert sometime in late April or early May, but it could be sooner if present trends persist. Apart from in art, PE and Music the other core subjects of the secondary curriculum are flagged as ‘amber’ by TeachVac, based upon the current vacancy levels. This means later in the recruitment round some schools in certain locations may experience recruitment challenges and may have to rely more upon returners or teachers moving schools. For schools and MATs that use TeachVac, we update the data on a daily basis so they receive the most up to date assessment when posting a vacancy.

Posting vacancies to TeachVac is free for schools.

The remainder of the talk is available on request from Teachvac 

First red alert from TeachVac in 2017

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There is a certain irony that on budget day TeachVac has issued its first red warning of teacher shortages in 2017 www.teachvac.co.uk . After matching the demand for teachers as measured by vacancies recorded against the supply of trainees not already working in a classroom, Business Studies as a subject, today reached the 20% level of remaining trainees available for employment. At this point, TeachVac suggests that there will not be enough trainees to fill their share of vacancies during the remainder of the recruitment round until December 2017, for January 2018 appointments and codes the subject red. At the level of a red alert, a school anywhere in England may experience recruitment difficulties in this subject from now onwards. Such has been the number of vacancies recorded since January that it is entirely possible that the stock of trainees in Business Studies will be exhausted before the end of April this year.

The next subject on the radar is English. Although currently at an amber warning, meaning schools in some areas may face a degree of challenge in making an appointment, we are watching the number of vacancies posted every day with great attention in order to see how quickly the trainee pool is being reduced. Schools that use TeachVac’s free service are told the latest position when they input a vacancy and they can also find out the state of the local job market should Ofsted come calling and ask for this information. Teachvac’s monthly newsletters also provide useful updates on the overall situation

Teachvac staff will also be delighted to talk with Sir Michael Barber about his new role improving public sector efficiency for the government that was announced in the budget, especially since TeachVac offers schools a free service in a manner that can save both the government and schools considerable amounts of money and provide much needed rea-time data about the working of the labour market for teachers.

The other budget announcements regarding education were fairly predictable, subject to anything in the small print not revealed in the Chancellor’s speech. I would have liked to see the situation regarding the levying of the apprenticeship levy on schools tidied up, so all pay the same if they have to pay anything. The wording on free transport to grammar schools for pupils on free school meals is frankly perplexing. I am sure the situation will be clarified over the coming days. The capital for refurbishing schools, spread a sit is over several years, isn’t going to go very far once urgent problems have been attended to.

The big loser in education are the self-employed tutors that will now pay more in National Insurance and face big penalties if they don’t declare their income for tax. The same may apply to supply teachers, depending upon how they arrange their affairs.

 

Uphill task, but not yet panic mode?

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At the end of January, when that month’s UCAS data on applications to ITT postgraduate programmes was published, I wrote in a blog ‘The next four weeks are vital ones for teacher supply and the number of teachers entering the labour market in 2018.’ So, it has turned out to be.

The February data was published earlier today. It is worth noting that it is data up to 20th February this year, whereas the comparative data for 2016 was up to the 15th February. On that basis there are several more days for applications included in this year’s figures.

As a result, the fact that applicants with a domicile in England are down from 26,130 last year to 24,720 this year is disappointing to say the least. Applications aren’t just down in one region, but across most of the country. In London, a key area of need for teachers, applicants are down by around 200 and in the usually buoyant North West, numbers are down by around 300.

Most alarming is the haemorrhaging of applications form those under 22. Compared with 2016, there have been around 1,000 fewer applicants from this age-group, to just 7,850.

The loss of keen bright new graduates has not been fully offset by additional applications for career changers and other older applicants. It is worth recalling that in February 2012, before the School Direct programmes were included in the process, there were 34,936 applicants at this point in the cycle. So in five years, teaching has seen around 10,000 fewer applicants by February As that month marks the half-way point in the application cycle, time is already slipping away to make up this deficit.

Of course, if the smaller number of applicants are of high quality, this may not matter. But, assuming no change in the profile or even that fewer doesn’t mean better, this poses a problem for providers. Do they lower the quality mark when offering places?

Interestingly, this is a dilemma for higher education as much as for school-based providers thus year since applications to higher education are holding up better than for school-based training. HE institutions have attracted 36,260 of the 73,440 applications. School Direct salaried has only attracted 10,350 compared with 11,680 last February. This is despite the greater proportion of older applications that would be eligible for the School Direct Salaried route. Of course, there may be fewer places on offer, but that fact remains a mystery since government won’t publish the national targets.

In terms of subjects, geography and history are doing well, several other subjects are holding their own and schools might well start making room for PSHE by axing business studies since there are likely to be few teachers. After all, it isn’t a subject we are going to need post BREXIT anyway.

Teaching seems to be looking less attractive as a career to women. In February 2012, some 24,265 women has applied for courses in England. This year, the number was just 17,360. Down by nearly 7,000 or more than a quarter. In the same period applications from men fell from 10,600 to around 7,400: some 3,200 fewer.

With the exam season approaching and no obvious reason for career switchers to increase their level of applications, the remainder of the recruitment round looks like being a real challenge. Not yet a crisis, but the problem of recruiting the next generation of teachers certainly hasn’t been solved despite three reports in the past twelve months.

 

TeachVac can offer a solution for free

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The House of Commons Select Committee has now produced their report into teacher recruitment and retention. https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmeduc/199/19902.htm

After reports by both the National Audit Office and the Migration Advisory Committee in the past twelve months, the Education Select Committee has wisely opted for a tightly focused report. After all, the evidence is well known to everyone interested in the subject.

However, it is interesting that the Committee has opted for the use of the word ‘challenge’ rather than the more emotive term, ‘crisis’. In their choice of language, the Committee might have offered an analysis of when a challenge might become a crisis? Why does missing the supply target five years in a row not constitute a crisis? Is the problem across the county nowhere a regional crisis: not even in Suffolk and parts of Essex? After all, the Committee took evidence for the head of a Southend Grammar School.

Nevertheless, one must not be too critical, the Committee has put the issue back on the agenda and tasked the government to come up with a plan to tackle the shortages. I am sure that the government will rightly point to their proposals to increase skill levels of those teaching the subjects. I think that is an excellent proposal, but it doesn’t do anything to address the suppressed shortages where subjects have been taken off the timetable or had reduce the amount of teaching time because of a lack of qualified teachers. I was also glad to see a reference to primary specialist teachers: a sector where little is really known about the skills base.

As you might expect, I am happy to discuss with officials both the working of the Teacher Supply Model and the operation of a free national vacancy service. I would hand over TeachVac to the government tomorrow if they agreed to pay its operating costs.

Over the past two years, TeachVac has shown how we can both provide high quality data not currently available to government and cut recruitment costs to schools across the whole of England. The evidence is in the TeachVac submissions to the Select Committee for anyone to judge. https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmeduc/199/19913.htm#_idTextAnchor027 (links 46 and 47) Perhaps the DfE could broker TeachVac as a part of the College of Teaching offering to the profession?

The section on continuing professional development is also to be welcomed. With a relatively young profession there is a need for much more investment than has been the case in recent years. However, the Committee didn’t really discuss the issue between CPD for the needs of the profession and CPD for the needs of an individual’s career. The development of teachers for pupils with special needs can highlight both aspects of this issue. Why would a school invest in developing the skills of a teacher that will then move elsewhere and how does the profession suffer if they don’t?

The government will now, hopefully, provide a formal response to the Committee and Ministers will certainly be asked about their views when they next meet the Committee. Will the DfE produce a long-term plan by the summer? We must wait and see.

 

Early applications to train as a teacher show positive signs

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Life has been a bit hectic for me recently. A week in The Gulf helping deliver a workshop for the British Council and since my return time spent doing battle with what I now know to be an abscess in my jaw; painful and debilitating.  This has meant that the November UCAS data has taken second place to other matters when it comes to writing my blog. However, I have now found time to look at what has been happening at the start of the 2016/17 recruitment round.

It is ironic, to say the least, to see data for November, since for many years this was regarded as too early in the recruitment round to be of any meaningful use. That wasn’t the case, but it helped save some blushes until the end of January when applications data was always published. As regular readers know, the battle over when data on acceptances should appear or indeed if it should appear at all is much more recent.

Anyway, how many more applicants were queuing up to train as a teacher when the UCAS scheme for 2017 opened this autumn than last year? The good news is that for applicants domiciled in England there were 11,660 in the system by mid-November 2016 compared with 7,840 at the similar point in 2015. That’s 3,820 more or an increase of nearly a half. Applications from those over 30 have remained static, but there has been a healthy increase in applications from young graduates. There were 3,390 male applicants this year by min-November compared with 2,100 last year at that time. There is one little caveat in that there is five days difference in the reporting dates between 2015 and 2016, with 2016 being that much later, so one would expect slightly higher figures, but not this level of increase.

Applications have increased from 22,510 at this point in 2015, to 33,840 in November 2016, with growth in applications for both primary and secondary courses. Candidates may make up to three applications, so the growth in applications seems lower than the increase in applicants, suggesting that some applicants may be making fewer applications. Applications are up for all the routes, with HE courses still attracting the bulk of the applications, up from 11,130 to 16,470, whereas applications for School Direct Salaried are up from 3,040 to 4,680. Interestingly, one of the smaller increases if for School Direct Salaried places in the secondary sector where the increase has been from 920 applications at this point last year to 1,140 this year.

The secondary subjects with the largest number of applications this year, as ever, are PE – up from 4,080 to 5,950; history – up from 1,260 to 1,830 and English – up from 1,350 to 1,870. For the first two subjects there will once again be a scramble for places and it is not helpful for the sector to be unaware of the overall total. Sadly, in Design & Technology, there may be fewer applications than at this point in 2015.

It is always good to be able to report an upward trend in applications. The issue is whether it can be sustained or just represents an early flurry of young applicants geared up to apply as soon as the recruitment round opens. By the December figures, we should start to have a clearer picture, but it will be the end of February before serious discussions on the likely outcome of the recruitment round can take place. Hopefully, we will still be seeing more interest in teaching than in recent years and will also know the number of places that need to be filled.

 

You cannot make bricks without straw

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The Chief Inspector’s final report contains many interesting comments and can be downloaded at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-annual-report-201516-education-early-years-and-skills

However, for the purpose of this post, the section that I will focus upon deals with teacher supply.  The two key paragraphs are 284 and 285 that are reproduced below.

  1. A lack of government data, both on recruitment and retention, hinders the national response to this issue. It is difficult to understand accurately the extent to which shortages exist at a local level, or the number of teachers moving abroad or between the independent and state sectors. The Department for Education’s teacher supply model is used to identify where new school-centred initial teacher training providers, or allocation of places to providers, may be needed. Currently, this model does not take important regional and local area considerations into account. As a result, there have been no significant changes in the geographical location of initial teacher education (ITE) providers.
  2. In September 2016, the government began piloting a ‘national teaching service’ scheme in the North. It aims to enlist up to 100 teachers to work in primary and secondary schools that are struggling to attract and retain teachers. If successful, and rolled out on a large enough scale, this may have some impact on teacher supply. Page 125

Now none of this comes as any great surprise, especially not to regular readers of this blog. It is worth recalling that the report deals with 2015/16, so doesn’t take into account the slight improvement in training numbers in some subjects recorded in the recent ITT census for 2016.

Of course, you wouldn’t expect me to pass up the opportunity to remind readers that in TeachVac there is a product designed by myself and my programmer and co-founder, Tim Ostley, to answer many of the questions about where the vacancies are. We have looked at adding in international school, but don’t yet have the funding to do so.

We have noted, along with the NAO in their report, the relative paucity of training provision in the East of England, and especially in Suffolk. The following table, prepared for a talk to Suffolk head teachers at the beginning of November shows the recorded vacancies compared with training numbers in Suffolk and across the East of England for the first ten months of 2016.

 

Vacancies ITT Census 2015
  2016 Suffolk ITT East of England
PE 6 9 121
Music 6 * 43
Mathematics 46 6 147
MFL 13 5 94
Humanities 6 NA NA
History 8 11 102
Geography 13 * 74
English 32 15 178
RE 10 0 80
Design & Technology 25 6 59
IT 13 * 42
Business studies 11 * 17
Science 59 * 243
Art 6 * 63
Drama NA * 31
254 98 1294

*Too low to record the actual number.

There is clearly a need for more training places in this part of the East of England. TeachVac can provide similar data for other areas, if anyone is interested, as we already do for schools facing an Ofsted inspection with Teachsted.

As to the future of the National Teaching Service, we aren’t holding our breath as we wonder whether it will ever progress beyond the trial stage to a full rollout. If it does, TeachVac is handily placed to offer support for such a service.

Finally, as the Chief Inspector’s say, it is the schools with more challenging pupils that suffer most when there is a shortage of teachers, especially if those with three to five years of teaching experience are leaving such schools in much higher numbers that in the recent past. Perhaps, next year, the new Chief Inspector will tell us why this is happening.

Is Lucy Kellaway an outlier?

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The good news seems to be that the soaring cost of tuition fees isn’t putting of new graduates from pursuing a career as a teacher: perhaps they recognise they will never repay these fees unless there is a period of rampant inflation at some point in the future.

In the ITT census for 2016, published last Thursday, the percentage of graduates under 25 entering postgraduate training has increased from 44% of the total in 2012/13 to 53% in 2016/17. There has been a corresponding fall in among older graduates, with the 25-29 age group showing the sharpest decline, down from 31% in 2012/13 to 24% in 2016/17.

Interestingly, the 25-29 age group accounts for the largest number of School Direct Salaried trainees in 2016/17, some 1,132 out of the 3,159 on this route; 36% of all such trainees. I am not sure how there can be 629 under 25s on the Salaried route, as many must just qualify for the three year post-degree requirement to be part of the programme. Indeed, there are more under 25s than there are trainees over 40 on the salaried route this year. Those on the salaried route under the age of thirty account for 56% of the trainees on this route into teaching: not, perhaps, what was intended when the scheme was devised.

The fact that only 73% of Teach First trainees are under 25 is also of interest since the scheme was designed to attract new graduates. However, 94% were under the age of thirty, so perhaps the programme is doing a good job with mature new graduates. Overall, the mean age of all Teach First’s new trainees this year was just 24.

The 7,328 under 25s that started a teacher preparation course in a higher education institution this September still account for the largest single group of new post-graduate trainees.

Men remain firmly in the minority among those with a declared gender. Only 20% of postgraduate and 15% of undergraduate entrants to primary courses are men this year. Although the undergraduate percentage has remained stable for some years now, the postgraduate percentage has declined from 23% as recently as 2013/14 to 20% this year and men accounted for only 17% of trainees recruited to the primary Teach First route. Still, there percentages are better than 20 years ago, when men only accounted for 16% of primary PGCE trainees in 1995.

There is relatively better news in the secondary sector, where men accounted for 40% of recruitment this year, up from 37% in 2012/13. This means that an extra 1,000 men started secondary teacher preparation courses this year compared with in 2012/13. However, even here Teach First lagged behind other routes, as men accounted for only 35% of their new secondary trainees this year.

There is more god news for the government in the fact that 2016/17 sees 15% of trainees coming from minority ethnic groups; the best percentage since before 2012/13. Here Teach First does better than the school based routes, but higher education institutions lead the way with nearly one in five of their trainees from minority ethnic groups. The location of schools and their propensity to recruit from their localities may account for the relatively low overall recruitment percentage from minority ethnic groups since the distribution of graduates in these groups is not spread evenly across England.

Lucy kellaway will find that there are 117 trainee teachers aged 55+ this year, with a further 421 between 50-54. Together, those over 50, account for 2% of new trainees.

 

Is Design & Technology dying by default?

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Over the past few years Design & Technology has consistently failed to recruit into training the number of teachers identified as being needed to staff our schools. The DfE uses the Teacher Supply Model to calculate an annual training number. Recent figures showing the following pattern of recruitment are in the Table.

courses starting in Number Recruited TSM Number Shortfall
2016 423 1034 611
2015 526 1279 753
2014 450 1030 580
2013 391 870 479
2012 710 825 115
2011 1970 1880 -90
2010 2940 2560 -380
2009 3100 2700 -400
10510 12178 1668

The over-recruitment (minus number in final column) of the period 2009-2011, a period when the economy was deeply mired in recession, has been replaced by five years of failure to recruit to what have been much lower targets. Indeed, the total number of new trainees recruited between 2012 and 2016 are in total less than were recruited in either 2009 or 2010.

Now it can be assumed that with falling rolls in secondary schools and a reluctance to cut back on training numbers during the period of the Labour government, too many Design & Technology teachers were probably being trained in 2009 and 2010. That cannot be said to be the case today. Demand, as measured by TeachVac, has outstripped the supply of teachers of Design & Technology in both 2015 and 2016, more notably in 2015 when the numbers in training were lower than were looking for teaching posts in 2016. The fact that the number of trainees recruited in 2016, as measured by the ITT census, is the lowest recorded since 2013 doesn’t bode well for schools looking to recruit Design & Technology teachers for September 2017 and January 2018.

Of course, Design & Technology is a portmanteau subject which, as the footnote in the ITT census explains, ’includes food’. By this, I think they mean teachers of food technology, the former home economics that emerged from the historical domestic science term used for those that taught ‘cooking and needlecraft’ in schools. Sadly, it looks as if there is no record of either the demand for teachers of the different aspects of Design & Technology or of the numbers entering training with the different backgrounds and skill sets. Perhaps there are enough trainees in food technology, but not in resistant materials? Perhaps, the position is the other way around.

Since starting this blog post, it has been pointed out to me that the numbers in Table 1a of the ITT census don’t seem to add up. There are 169 trainees shown as in higher education; 66 on courses in SCITTs and 117 on School Direct Fee courses. The numbers on the School Direct salaried route and Teach First are each hidden behind an asterisk. This normally means too few to report, so we can assume not more than 20 across both routes. By my mathematics this makes between 352 and 372 trainees and not the 423 reported in the census. The other 71 might be on undergraduate courses, but that column isn’t shown by subject in the Table, only an overall total of 243 undergraduates across all subjects. Looking back at 2014 undergraduate numbers, an assuming a three year degree course, entrants were 32 to Design & Technology undergraduate courses in 2014. Thus if all remained, an unlikely outcome, the number entering the labour market in 2017 will be 352 postgraduates (minus any that don’t complete the course – let’s say 30), so 322 postgraduates plus 32 undergraduates to a maximum of 354, the lowest number for many years.

Such numbers, and the trend over recent years does leave one to wonder why trainees in Design & Technology with a 2:2 degree don’t receive a bursary whereas those in Biology (a subject that over-recruited this year) will receive £10,000 in 2017, and those that started courses this September with a 2:2 in biology received £15,000.

But, then the distribution of bursaries has always been a mystery to me. Perhaps it has something to do with the value of the EBacc in the curriculum compared with Design & Technology.

Still a recruitment challenge in 2017, for some if not all

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At the end of September, I posted a blog with my predictions about recruitment against target for ITT graduate courses that started this September, excluding Teach First. I had expected Teach First to meet its targets, but seemingly it didn’t and that hasn’t helped the overall percentages. Nevertheless, how did I do?

You can check the original post at https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/small-fall-in-applicant-numbers-for-graduate-teacher-preparation-courses/ or use the sidebar to navigate to September 2016.

My original predictions and the outcomes appear below. I wrote in September that:

As far as individual secondary subjects are concerned, this has been a better year for applications in many subjects than 2015, although the increase has not be universal. The actual outcome won’t be known until the ITT census in November, but on the basis of this UCAS data it appears that the following might be the outcome in relation to the government’s Teacher Supply Model number (minus the Teach First allocation, where applications are not handled by UCAS).

Art & Design – acceptances above 2015, but not likely to be enough to meet the TSM number. Only 82% of target was met – worse than I expected, but should still be enough to satisfy demand in 2017 from schools.

Biology – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number. Very strong recruitment reaching 115% of target, the second highest percentage of any subject this year. Some trainees may struggle to find jobs in 2017.

Business Studies – acceptances above 2015, close to TSM, but the TSM isn’t large enough to meet demand from schools for these teachers. Only 85% of places filled. I was slightly over-optimistic. On basis of last two years of data schools will find this is not enough trainees to meet demand. DfE must explain why the subject doesn’t rate more support?

Chemistry – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number. As indeed it almost did with 99% of target met. Schools should find recruitment easier in 2017 than in previous two years.

IT/computing – acceptances below last year and not enough to meet TSM. Only 68% of places met, so the latter part of 2017 might challenging for schools looking for an IT teacher for January 2018, but it depends upon overall level of demand that has fluctuated from year to year more so than in some other subjects.

Design & Technology – the position is unclear from the UCAS data, but TSM may not be met. In fact outcome was a disaster, with only 41% of target places filled. The UCAS data system must allow this fact to be tracked and the DfE must consider whether financial support is sufficient. If not, it must be questionable whether the subject or at least some aspects of it will survive in schools much longer.

English – acceptances similar to last year and should meet TSM number. Here recruitment controls seem to have worked better than in some subjects, with 98% of target met. Those schools without School Direct or Teach First trainees may struggle to fill vacancies later in the year in 2017, since only 25% of trainees are in higher education courses and 15% are on Teach First, with a further 20% on the School Direct salaried route. This is more than double the number in any other School Direct salaried subject.

Geography – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number. In fact target was passed, with 116% recruitment, higher than in any other subject. This should mean schools have little difficulty recruiting in 2017.

History – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number. Target exceeded and 112% recruited. No real excuse for this overshoot, especially as only 30% are in higher education courses. Some trainees will struggle to find teaching post in 2017 unless there is a surge in demand.

Mathematics – acceptances above last year, but probably still not enough to meet the TSM number. And that was the outcome. A good year all round and had the target not been increased there would have been an overshoot on the target of 2015. Do bursaries work here and will there be an issue about extent of subject knowledge of some trainees? This outcome poses problems for the Migration Advisory Committee in reference to whether the subject should still qualify for tier 2 visa status?

Music – acceptances above 2015 and should meet TSM number. Sadly, it didn’t and the target was missed by 10%, although that is only 40 trainees. Higher education courses account for half of trainees and there are too few School Direct Salaried trainees to count. Some schools may struggle to recruit in 2017, especially for January 2018 appointments.

Physics – acceptances above 2015, but probably still not enough to meet the TSM number. And that was the outcome, with only 81% of places being filled. Higher education accounted for more than half of the 2016 cohort of trainees. Schools will still struggle to recruit the 444 trainees not in school-based courses. The independent sector may absorb a large proportion of these trainees.

Physical Education – acceptances below last year due to the effects of the recruitment controls, but should be enough to meet TSM. There was still over-recruitment, despite the controls, and perhaps 500 trainees will struggle to find a teaching post in their subject tin 2017.

Religious Education – acceptances below last year and not enough to meet TSM. Only 80% of places were filled with higher education recruiting a very high percentage of the trainees (60%) and Teach First and School Direct Salaried routes  contributing realtively rew to the trainee count Schools will find recruitment more of a challenge as the year progresses.

Languages – difficult to determine exact position from the UCAS data, but should easily meet TSM number on the basis of acceptances. In fact, 95% of places were filled although 59% of these were in higher education institutions. On the basis of 2015 and 2016, the number of trainees overall will be sufficient, but whether they have the languages needed is another matter and I am not sure anyone actually knows.

So, the predictions weren’t too far out. That’s a relief. The outcome shows some schools will face recruitment challenges in 2017 and for January 2018 unless their financial situation deteriorates, so as to reduce demand.

What happens to retention will also be another significant factor in determining recruitment. However, pupil numbers at key Stage 3 are on the increase, so unless class sizes also increase that may create further demand. From that point of view, any weakening in the demand from the independent sector because of fewer overseas students would be helpful. However, the sinking pound makes UK schooling cheaper to buy for many that want it for their children.

In all, 2017 will be, not a disaster, but a challenge, more so for some schools than others and the government is by no means off the hook in terms of solving the recruitment issue.